That makes so much sense. Thank you !
I was doing some task where you had to put either ～ため(に) or ～にとって in different sentences. One sentence brough such a confusion to me that I’ve spent 10-20 minutes digging around and trying to undestand it. I am still not that good with ～よう grammar and it wrecks me from time to time. Also potential form verbs are rarely encoutered by me, so they bring confusion.
Here is the sentence:
「これは若者のために考えられないような古いものです。」
My rough translation:
“This is an old thing which seemingly can’t take children into consideration”
Is that correct I can just throw out ような and get
“This is an old thing which can’t take children into consideration” ?
Are you 100% sure that’s supposed to be ために in that sentence and not にとって? Because to me, it makes a lot more sense with にとって.
これは若者にとって 考えられないような古いものです
This is an old thing that seems to be inconceivable for young people.
そこの vs その
Is there a difference?
その can also be used in a more abstract sense, while そこの is referring pretty directly to “something over there.”
So if I wanted to say “How did that test go?” I wouldn’t use そこの as I’m not really talking about something concrete over there.
Me? 100% sure? With THAT language? Hell no.
But yes, your variant sounds good. Now I understood what is written there.
Someone else with a lot more experience with Japanese than me needs to come in and evaluate whether either of these sentences are strange/ungrammatical, but to me, both sentences seem grammatically correct, just that 考えられない needs to be interpreted differently in each case. @Kateikyoshi, could you please (because I think it’s quite important to the discussion) confirm which sentence you wanted to discuss, and how you know whether that’s the answer? Is this an exercise from a workbook or website that comes with the answers? (I have a breakdown for each version, but I’ll only start typing after you respond.)
EDIT: With some thought, I guess I agree that @Shunrin’s version sounds better, because it fits better in an ordinary conversation. The context in which my interpretation of the other version would work is quite specific, and frankly, even in that context, the sentence might be illogical because of 考えられない being in the present tense.
考えられない can also be an adjective meaning unthinkable or unimaginable. I think that’s how it’s being used here.
This is true, and that’s how I interpreted it in your sentence, even though you could say that the adjectival sense would still be conveyed even if it’s treated as a verb. Something is characterised by someone ‘not being able to think about/conceive of it’, and is hence ‘inconceivable’ or ‘unthinkable’.
Anyway, I’ll just get to it, because I want to go do something else without keeping this translation in my head. I just thought Kateikyoshi might be able to reply shortly because I saw the reply directed at you go up, but perhaps everyone’s busy. (I’m not complaining, so no need for anyone to feel sorry or wonder whether I’m annoyed. I just have other things to do, and I don’t want to forget what I intended to say.)
To me, this would mean ‘This is an old object that doesn’t seem to be conceived for young people.’ In other words, I think that 考えられない should be interpreted as the negative passive form in this case. In my opinion, this might work if the sentence were a comment on an old walking stick. However, there are two potential problems with this:
- I think it would be more natural, in English, to say ‘this is an old object that doesn’t seem to have been conceived for…’ or ‘doesn’t seem like it was conceived for…’, because the object was created in the past, probably quite a long time ago. That’s why it’s a 古いもの, after all. However, Japanese tenses aren’t always used the same way as English tenses, and the present tense (like in English) can be used to describe an inherent characteristic of or a fact about an object e.g. ‘this knife was made for cutting wood’ (emphasis on original purpose and past action of ‘making’) vs ‘this knife is made for cutting wood’ (emphasis on the knife’s design and present state of being suitable for cutting wood). As such, perhaps it’s not wrong to use 考えられない instead of 考えられなかった. The next issue is more important though.
- It seems a little strange to say that an ‘old object’ doesn’t seem like it was ‘conceived/designed for young people’. The object is old. Why would it have been made for young people, especially the young people of today? (Hence my musings about the use of the present tense.) The sentence would thus probably only make sense in the context of an archaeological dig or a comment on ancient objects, justifying the need for the use of ような because even an expert would be unlikely to know exactly what an object was once used for. And even then, I’m still unsure about the acceptability of the use of the present tense, though I doubt it’s an issue with the right context.
If I wanted to say “it seems like my neighbour has a new dog considering how much barking I hear from next door” I would use ようだ and not らしい right?
I’ll just refer to my post above. I think you’re right about ようだ being preferable, because it’s a deduction based on fairly direct experience and related to an event that probably concerns you quite a bit. (Barking is often loud, after all.)
My god you put in so much effort. Thank you!
From what I understand, you’re supposed to use the て form to combine two adjectives. So
There is a cute black dog.
可愛くて黒い犬がいます。
However, in the wild I often see 可愛い attached directly to another adjective like this
可愛い黒い犬がいます。
Why is this? Is there something special about 可愛い or is using the て form to combine adjectives a rule people usually ignore like “who” vs “whom” in English?
You can see the sentence in two different ways, since we’re talking about a subclause:
可愛い［黒い犬］
A black dog which is cute.
可愛くて黒い［犬］
A dog which is cute and black.
When it’s not in a clause, I think you have to use te form:
犬は可愛くて黒い。
The dog is cute and black.
There is nothing special about 可愛い.
That makes sense. Thanks!
I’ve read a few threads on indirect passive interpretation(How do native Japanese speakers understand the Japanese passive? - #2 by aiju for example), but I just wanted to know how you guys (aka the regulars in this thread) translate indirect passives in your brain? I kinda get what’s going on in the sentence, but I always take forever to translate it in my head. (I know ideally, I shouldn’t be translating stuff but…)
Could you give an example? But I usually try not to actually translate, but go straight to comprehension.
Gonna steal examples from DoBJG but
1.山田さんは奥さんに逃げられた 。
2. 太郎は春子にたばこすわれた 。
By adding “and it sucks”, at the end of the sentence 
山田さんは奥さんに逃げられた
About yamada, wife ran away (and it sucks)
太郎は春子にたばこすわれた 。
About taro, hanako smoked cigarets (and it sucks)
(so she probably smoked taro’s cigarets without permission)
Oh, I never knew it worked like this. I always thought it depended on which kind of adjectives are used. For example if you use an adjective that expresses a number (いろいろ) or a judgement (sorry, I don’t know the correct term, but I’m thinking of verbs like すばらしい and かわいい) in front of an adjective that describes a characteristic feature (大きい or 黒い) you would use the attributive form. On the other hand, if you have two adjectives for characteristics in a row, the first one has to be in the て-form. 
Are these rules incorrect? Thanks for your help!